The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

Here's a question with no easy answer. What is a business ecosystem? I happen to think that business ecosystems are the most important component in the new enterprise operating system but I still have trouble defining them. We know that Apple is sustained by a huge ecosystem of Apps developers and that this is different from the old VARS or ISV ecosystems of, for example, Microsoft, but defining this new system, and more importantly describing how to manage it, is fraught with difficulty.

An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. This economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organizations also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they co-evolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies.

I think that is substantially different from the ecosystems that are now evolving, which tend to be highly overlapping, as well as very diverse. For example the Apple community overlaps with the Android and even the Nokia. Apps developers do not need to align with Apple in the way they once did with, for example, Microsoft. They are more independent and may take on a higher level of creativity.

A missing ingredient 18 yeas ago when Moore wrote about ecosystems was the new degree of connectivity and the power of influence. Today's ecosystems include the community of commentators as well as suppliers and customers and instant communications and reputation risk.

Indeed these might well be the most important ingredient of ecosystem success, at least as important as what we used to call the keystone company.

Still, we are faced with a challenge of how to manage these diverse and loose connections of businesses and their information infrastructure.

Companies like Apple have done a great job of combining light touch management and some hardcore rule setting, sometimes antagonising and sometimes pleasing its community but are we any closer to a new set of rules for how to initiate, develop and grow a modern business ecosystem, powered by the very new forms of connectivity we now enjoy?

I don't think so - and it is a huge gap in management theory, evidence and practice.

An obvervational rule for ecosystems

One of my number one rules for managing ecosystems is to be active in growing and sustaining the information infrastructure around your products.

Don't leave the ecosystem knowledge space to the open market.

Microsoft has been adept at doing this over a long period of time now, and this relatively old software powerhouse, is beginning to garner attention for what it is achieving in its ecosystem through an influencer community. Apple too sustains its success through a very active writer community.

The new infographic from Harmon.ie, showing the top 25 online influencers in the Sharepoint community. It's an impressive array of non-Microsoft writers who sustain Sharepoint through insight and critique. While some companies try to influence a community of writers, smart ones create or sustain a community of influencers.